The Role of the Bass in Music | StudyBass

StudyBassers, let's talk about the role the bass in music and bands and what makes it so important and essential. Have you ever noticed that bands always have bass players? You see bands that don't have singers or guitar players or keyboard players or drummers, but there's always a bass. In the rare case there's not a bass, someone fills in that bass part. So why is that? Why do we need the bass in music? Well first we need to look at the three basic areas music to understand where the bass fits in. So, we have melody, harmony and rhythm. First we have melody. Melody is the part of the music that the singer sings or a guitar solo It's usually the singable part the music. The next area is harmony. Harmony is all about groups of notes played together at the same time. So harmony can be created by a single instrument like guitar or a piano... Or, harmony can be created by groups of instruments together like a symphony... Or groups of singers like a choir or barbershop quartet. The third basic area music is rhythm. Rhythm is when all these musical sounds occur in time. So the bass is so important music because it sets the foundation for two of the three basic areas music. It sets the foundation for the rhythm and for the harmony. Most people understand the rhythmic aspect of the bass. When you hear a bassline you can feel the pulse. You can tap your foot to it. So the bass helps the listener feel the pulse of the music. It helps the listener feel the beat. Now the sound of the bass...it's rarely dreamy and soft. Instead it's very focused and it's very punchy and percussive. So the bass really acts like a giant drum but it's not an ordinary drum because it plays pitches--it plays notes. And this is the really important part of the bass that most people don't understand. So when you hear multiple notes at the same time your brain uses the lowest note that hears as a reference point. So the bass note is helping your ear understand what all the other note should sound like together. I'll give you an example. If I play these three notes on the piano. I can make those same three notes sound different to you depending on which bass note I choose to play. So let's try it. Here's our piano notes. Sounds bright and happy. It's a little darker sounding. Sounds kind of mysterious. Sounds harsh. Again... Okay so you can hear that it's the bass note that's helping your year decide what all those other note should sound like together. It's a very, very powerful note. Now when you combine the rhythmic role the bass and the harmonic role the bass together in a band, you'll really understand why the bass is so important. Why it's so essential. Most bands you're going to have drums, bass, a singer, guitar or keyboards. And of all of those instruments the drums are pure rhythm. The other instruments in the band like guitar or piano are going to play groups of notes together called chords. Listen to the drums and guitar together with no bass. So you can probably hear that there's a gap between the drums and the guitar. They're sort of disconnected. So here's the same track with bass. So how does bass connect all of it? Well, the percussive sound of the bass is connecting with the drums to form the rhythmic backbone of the band but then the notes of the bass connect to the notes of the other instruments. So you're in this important place where you're marrying the pure rhythm of the drums to the notes on the other instruments. Now beyond gluing the whole band together, the bass is still choosing what the overall harmony sounds like. with its notes. So instead of sounding like one chord I can make that same tracks sound like two chords alternating back and forth. So the rhythmic and harmonic power over the bass is what makes it so essential to music. The bass is helping set the pulse of the music and its anchoring the harmony. So it's tying all of the instruments and all of the music together. If you're just starting to learn how to play the bass, you probably think that technique is the biggest part of learning how to play. And, technique is important but the really important stuff for bass players to study is RHYTHM and HARMONY. So I hope you go through all my lessons on StudyBass. They're all free. And I want you to learn as much as you can about rhythm and harmony in addition to technique.

Channel: studybass

Views: 362,518

Keywords: bass (Musical Instrument), bass guitar (Musical Instrument), music education, harmony (Music), StudyBass, Bass Lessons, music, rhythm

Id: iAx_XGk_eJU

Length: 7min 26sec (446 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 23 2015